When is a good time to attack a chosen stronghold?

[a Orc]

Playing ironman commander, I have found the assassin's stronghold.

The aliens are currently fielding Heavy MEC's as their strongest units. My best soldiers are three majors (templar, sharpshooter and support). I have improved conventional weapons, no proving ground. Is now a good time to attack, or should I wait?

What is better generally, attack a stronghold or defend against an assault on the avenger? Attack early when both the chosen and XCOM aren't at their strongest yet, or wait until you can send in an elite colonel team against a fully prepared chosen?

[Včelí medvídek]

From legendary perspective - better rush chosen with mag weapons and majors than have enemy with many imunities and ability summon whole army in one turn running around..

I personaly never had to do new defend mission but from I saw it is way more challanging than old one (simply because it is time limited before avenger will be destroyed by cannon, in old mission you could get control on battlefield and destroy enemy reinforcement indifinetely..)

So my personal opinion is go for chosen asap is win in long run (still it is one-try in ironman so consider it properly:-)

[.O.]

My preference is to rush. True your soldiers are weaker, but so is the chosen and the aliens.

[Path]

Magnetic weapons and bluescreen rounds should be enough to do this fairly early, as long as you can deal with the downtime for your men afterwards. The sarcophagus goes down quickly with those, and if you bring some DoTs to cheese it, you can largely trivialise the fight itself. Aliens only spawn during turns when the Chosen is not active, so to make the fight easy you just need to apply DoTs to them so they die during their own turn. Done correctly you can then get an entire turn with no Chosen or aliens at all, letting you blast the sarcophagus with your bluescreen rounds. Highly recommended on Legend as you normally only get one round before the Chosen returns otherwise.

[UATUU]

The only tip I can provide is when NOT to hit up a stronghold, and that's when you are maxxed with plasma and spider/exo/war/wraith armor. Nothing worse than breezing through the stronghold with a flawless rating and being dissapointed in all the build up.

[floyd ryan]

What is a DoT? And do i get bluescreen rounds from the bluescreen project?

[Včelí medvídek]

Originally posted by floyd ryan:

What is a DoT? And do i get bluescreen rounds from the bluescreen project?

Damage Over Time (eg. burning effect, acid, poison..)

[Sabertoothproton]

Originally posted by floyd ryan:

What is a DoT? And do i get bluescreen rounds from the bluescreen project?

Yes and it is highly recommended you do

[Včelí medvídek]

Originally posted by sabertoothproton:

Originally posted by floyd ryan:

What is a DoT? And do i get bluescreen rounds from the bluescreen project?

Yes and it is highly recommended you do

Yep, I compeletely stop use any other ammo.. (always tempted by talon for ranger but still..)

[Sabertoothproton]

Originally posted by Včelí medvídek:

Originally posted by sabertoothproton:

Yes and it is highly recommended you do

Yep, I compeletely stop use any other ammo.. (always tempted by talon for ranger but still..)

Talon is great for crit build rangers. I do use it over blue screens.
Blue screens on gunslingers with the darkclaw is absolutely murderous though

[learnedhand]

The Chosen avenger assaults are pretty easy once you understand the mechanics, even on L/I, so its good xp in a controlled setting. Sit back for the first couple of turns and deal with the rushing assassin and nearby pod, then just sweep everyone to one side (i think the left is easier) or send in some stealth to snipe them down from a distance. Assaulting a stronghold is more unpredictable since you have to be the aggressor and ♥♥♥♥ happens. I would not rush the stronghold if you have any doubts about your readiness to do so.

[Včelí medvídek]

Originally posted by learnedhand:

The Chosen avenger assaults are pretty easy once you understand the mechanics, even on L/I, so its good xp in a controlled setting. Sit back for the first couple of turns and deal with the rushing assassin and nearby pod, then just sweep everyone to one side (i think the left is easier) or send in some stealth to snipe them down from a distance. Assaulting a stronghold is more unpredictable since you have to be the aggressor and ♥♥♥♥ happens. I would not rush the stronghold if you have any doubts about your readiness to do so.

Hmm,a re you sure? As stated before I never played those but from my wacth of stream, the great cannon shots each 3 turns for 100 integrity? Plus the armored cars. With 400 integrity it is about 10 turn for take cannon out or there is guaranteed game over.. does not sound like very controlled relaxed setting (talking about L/I you mentioned).

[Sabertoothproton]

Originally posted by Včelí medvídek:

Originally posted by learnedhand:

The Chosen avenger assaults are pretty easy once you understand the mechanics, even on L/I, so its good xp in a controlled setting. Sit back for the first couple of turns and deal with the rushing assassin and nearby pod, then just sweep everyone to one side (i think the left is easier) or send in some stealth to snipe them down from a distance. Assaulting a stronghold is more unpredictable since you have to be the aggressor and ♥♥♥♥ happens. I would not rush the stronghold if you have any doubts about your readiness to do so.

Hmm,a re you sure? As stated before I never played those but from my wacth of stream, the great cannon shots each 3 turns for 100 integrity? Plus the armored cars. With 400 integrity it is about 10 turn for take cannon out or there is guaranteed game over.. does not sound like very controlled relaxed setting (talking about L/I you mentioned).

You can just cheese it with a reaper and a bunch of squadsight snipers

[theworld]

Cannon is very easy to take out with just 1 Sharpshooter with Bluescreen rounds and 1 Reaper to give sight. Even with the Basic Sniper Rifle.

[a Orc]

Well I went ahead and attacked the stronghold. Thanks for all the advice!

While I was preparing (waiting for my tired majors to take their beauty naps) my covert ops acquired a breakthrough tech for improved magnetic weapons. I was also given a mission to recover an item, with a generous amount of supplies as a reward. My hacker even recovered a large stash of alloys. So I was able to equip everyone with improved mag weapons. In the meanwhile my proving ground was constructed and I rushed out some bluescreen rounds.

Originally posted by Včelí medvídek:

From legendary perspective - better rush chosen with mag weapons and majors than have enemy with many imunities and ability summon whole army in one turn running around..

So my personal opinion is go for chosen asap is win in long run (still it is one-try in ironman so consider it properly:-)

So I did exactly that. The first part was rather easy due to the reaper detonating almost the entire base. The other soldiers just had to mob up the mess. Except at the portal, where my ranger missed a 99% chance shot and got knocked unconscious. But she was patched up by the support and off we went.

Originally posted by Path:

Aliens only spawn during turns when the Chosen is not active, so to make the fight easy you just need to apply DoTs to them so they die during their own turn. Done correctly you can then get an entire turn with no Chosen or aliens at all, letting you blast the sarcophagus with your bluescreen rounds.

That was a great advice! Earlier I had looted some viper rounds, which proved very useful for just that.

The assassin had a weakness against templars, but I completely forgot that my templar had a fear of the chosen. The first time she appeared he resisted his fears, but when she jumped out of her destroyed sarcophagus, he became obsessed. He ran straight at her, shooting his autopistol at every step, and before my squad and I realized what was happening, she was dead.

So that was easier than expected :)

[Elevrai]

If you have those following:
-2 Rangers with rapid fire
-Level 3 bond
-Bluscreen rounds

Sarcophagus becomes a joke: Use Rapid fire with a ranger, use teamwork with other ranger and rapid fire, then use dual strike with first ranger. This is enough to nearly kill it.